Book: Materials for the Intellectual History of Imāmī Shīʿism in the Safavid Period

In 1934 the New York Public Library purchased a sizable collection of 250 volumes of Arabic manuscripts through the fund for Semitic literature that had been provided by Jacob Heinrich Schiff (d. 1920).

In 1934 the New York Public Library (NYPL) purchased a sizable collection of 250 volumes of Arabic manuscripts through the fund for Semitic literature that had been provided by Jacob Heinrich Schiff. Ms New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Arabic Manuscripts Collection, Volume 51985A, a facsimile of which is included in the present publication, belongs to the Shīʿī material among the collection. It is a multitext volume of 269 leaves which in its present form comprises seven individual works. It is hoped that the present facsimile edition will enable and encourage scholars to delve into the materials it contains.

In 1934 the New York Public Library purchased a sizable collection of 250 volumes of Arabic manuscripts through the fund for Semitic literature that had been provided by Jacob Heinrich Schiff (d. 1920). While the collection is known to have been purchased in Baghdad, no further details are available about the transaction. The collection contains a fair number of writings by Ibrāhīm Faṣīḥ b. Ṣibghat Allāh al-Ḥaydarī al-Baghdādī (d. 1299/1882) and by some earlier members of the prominent Ḥusaynābādī/Ḥaydarī-family, and this in addition to numerous Twelver Shīʿī titles.The present volume contains a facsimile reproduction of Ms New York Public Library, Volume 51985A, which belongs to the Shīʿī material among the collection. It is a heavily damaged multitext codex of 252 leaves which which comprises seven individual works: An incomplete copy of Khiḍr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Rāzī al-Ḥablirūdī’s (d. ca. 850/1447) longer commentary on the ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī’s al-Bāb al-ḥadī ʿashar, Jāmiʿ al-durar fī sharḥ al-Bāb al-ḥādī ʿashar; several works by Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (d. after 906/1501), viz.Qabs al-iqtidāʾ fī sharāʾiṭ al-iftāʾ wa-l-istiftāʾ, Kāshifat al-ḥāl ʿan aḥwāl al-istidlāl, and al-Masālik al-jāmiʿiyya fī sharḥ al-Alfiyya, which were copied during the author’s lifetime; Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-ʿĀmilī’s (“al-Shaykh al-Bahāʾī”, d. 1030/1621) Tafsīr sūrat al-fātiḥa, or al-ʿUrwa al-wuthqā; and two works by Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Iṣfahānī “al-Fāḍil al-Hindī” (d. 1137/1725) which are not attested elsewhere—a commentary (ḥāshiya) on the chapter on the imamate of Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī’s (d. 792/1390) Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid, and a commentary on the Nahj al-ḥaqq wa-kashf al-ṣidqby the ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī.

About the Author

Sabine Schmidtke is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She has published extensively on Islamic and Jewish intellectual history, as well as the Muslim reception of the Bible and its early translation history into Arabic. Her works include Theologie, Philosophie und Mystik im zwölferschiitischen Islam des 9./15. Jahrhunderts: Die Gedankenwelten des Ibn Abī Ǧumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (um 838/1434-35–nach 906/1501) (Brill, 2000), The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology (OUP, 2016), and, together with Hassan Ansari, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions (Lockwood Press, 2017). She is also the executive editor of Intellectual History of the Islamicate World (Brill) and, with Hassan Ansari, of Shii Studies Review (Brill).

Table of Contents

Introduction (vii)

Bibliography (xv)

Facsimile Edition of Ms New York Public Library, Arabic Manuscripts Collections, Volume 51985A (1)

Arabic Table of Contents (ٔأ)

Bibliographic Information

Title: Materials for the Intellectual History of Imāmī Shīʿism in the Safavid Period: A Facsimile Edition of Ms New York Public Library, Arabic Manuscripts Collections, Volume 51985A

Author: Sabine Schmidtke

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC

Language: English

Length: 564 pages

ISBN: 978-1-4632-3923-7

Pub. Date: Jun 27,2018